


Road Trip

by MsMockingbird



Series: The Mockingverse [14]
Category: Avengers (All Media), Hawkeye (Comics), Mockingbird (Marvel) - Fandom
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Other, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-27 06:22:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6273229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMockingbird/pseuds/MsMockingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint takes Bobbi to meet his brother for the first time--the brother he'd sworn to her was dead--and runs into some ghosts from his past who are very intent to renew their acquaintence with the Barton brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

"I'm just saying, all the other marksmen are villains," Bobbi Barton declared, dangling her right hand over the door of the rental convertible. Her fingers--nails painted deep blue, a sure sign she was in 'vacation' mode--tapped against the cherry red paint. 

In the driver's seat, Clint snorted. The Nevada desert stretched to either side of the road and the pavement before them melted into liquid at the vanishing point. The sun was high and bright and they seemed like the only living things that weren't cactus for miles. They were both wearing sunglasses and sunscreen and as little clothing as they legally could. Every time Clint looked at his wife, in jean shorts and a bright pink halter top, he nearly swung the car to the shoulder and pulled her into the back seat.   
    
"Oh, really, name one--"   
    
"Bullseye."   
    
"Other than the obvious one."   
    
She started ticking off a list. "Crossbones. Hitman. Kraven. Winter Solder--"   
    
"No fair, Bucky's not a villain anymore."   
    
"That we know about. He's been dodging Sam and Steve and Natasha for years now. Anyway," she continued, "Silencer. Zaran. Taskmaster. Longbow."   
    
"You and Widow are on the list and you aren't villains," Clint said in a hurt voice.   
    
"My point. Made."   
    
"Well, fine, I bet I can list a bunch of villains who hit people with sticks!' he declared, then stopped. She made a "hmmm?" noise at him after a couple of minutes. "Shaddup I'm thinking." 

"I know, I can smell the hamster wheel burning," she said in a mild voice.   
    
Clint whipped the car to the right, into a deserted pullout littered with tumbleweeds. He threw it into park and turned the engine off, snapped off both their seatbelts, then hauled Bobbi one-handed into the back seat of the car before the noise died.   
    
"What are you doing?" Bobbi shrieked, laughing, her hands already on the waistband of his shorts.   
    
"Indulging my inner villain," Clint hissed, stroking his hands up her sides, dragging the thin fabric of her shirt--complete with shelf bra--up to her collarbone. The creamy skin and dark pink nipples of her breasts gleamed like jewels in the bright sun.   
    
The sticky, cramped, giggling fumble that followed was short but satisfying for both of them.   
    
Back on the road fully clothed again, Bobbi stretched out languidly, hooking one foot under the side mirror and leaning against Clint's side. Somehow she managed to keep her seatbelt buckled the whole time. The previous topic was dropped in favor of sly sexual innuendo for the most part except for:   
    
"Seriously, how many knives are you carrying right now? I found two and I'm still not sure how you got them...to lie flat like that. In that position," Clint asked in a worried tone.   
    
"Nat's been tutoring me."   
    
"A _lot_ of knives then, copy."   
    
Bobbi turned her head and kissed his arm. "Clint? You wanna tell me why we're in Nevada headed to the middle of nowhere and not the Strip drinking alcoholic slushies taller than our heads?"   
    
He was silent again, a darker, colder silence than before. Bobbi sat up and turned to look at him; he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, his face still and sad.   
    
"You're not going like it," he said softly. "In fact, you're going to be really mad at me."   
    
"Okay," she nodded. "Going into year five of the marriage it's about time we had a super bad fight. I'm expecting spec-tac-u-lar makeup sex by the way. Like Cirque level spectacular."   
    
Despite himself, Clint laughed. It was hollow but it was a laugh. "Funny you should mention circuses...."   
    
"Ohhh, boy," Bobbi muttered, wrestling herself around to stare at him.   
    
"So, um, my weird ass childhood has already come back to bite us once (1). After the Siege last year (2), I got an email from an untraceable account--well, untraceable to people who aren't Stark--telling me that a couple of old ghosts from back then were resurfacing out here. I started looking into it and I found...well, the ghost of all ghosts."   
    
"Chisholm? Or Duquesne?" Bobbi asked. Trick Shot--Buck Chisholm--had been the first person to put a bow in Clint's hand, the first adult male in his life to treat him as though he was worth anything. And then ruthlessly threw him away when Clint wouldn't agreed to be a good little minion for him and the Swordsman--Jacques Duquesne--in their so-called Circus of Crime.   
    
Clint shook his head. "They were the first ones I found. I was planning to ask Steve if we could perform a little corrective internal surgery on American soil one of these days."   
    
The penny dropped. Bobbi sat up straight, her eyes filled with horror and hurt in equal measures.   
    
"He's dead," she snapped. "You told me he was dead."   
    
Clint winced, unable to look at her. When he spoke it was with the voice of a child, the child he'd been: alone, lost, terrified. Filled with self-loathing and convinced he was worthless. A child who had been betrayed, abandoned, by everyone who was supposed to care about him.   
    
"I lied to you. He made me promise when he...when he left with Swordsman. Said if I left him alone, told everyone he was dead, he'd keep them off me." His voice was bitter as the arctic wind and the air around them seemed colder suddenly.   
    
In her lap, Bobbi's fists clenched. "Three things Clint. Three fucking things were all I asked," she said softly. "That was number one."   
    
The day they had married --the longest day of either of their lives, 36 hours total (1 Again)-- Bobbi had told him her deal breakers. _Don't lie to me. Don't cheat on me. Don't try to hit me in anger._   
    
She continued. "You're right, I am angry. But, Odin, it's how much it hurts that gets me. I lie for a living, I expect to be lied to. I just didn't expect you--" She turned her head away and his hand spasmed on the steering wheel, as though he wanted to let go and reach for her. He didn't though. He didn't want any broken bones right now.   
    
"Did you make some sort of calculation?" she said in a small voice. "Some sort of mathematics of betrayal? Better to hold my promise to my brother than my wife?"   
    
"If I said I had would it be better or worse? I don't know, little bird. I don't know why I lied."   
    
Her voice, small before, was tiny now, a choked ghost of her usual sardonic eloquence. "Was it because I didn't tell you about Slade right away?"   
    
Clint's hands shook so hard he actually swerved the car over the center line, into the oncoming lanes and over onto the shoulder on that side, kicking up dust in a wild cloud. He jerked it viciously back into his lane, his face set in a snarl of pure rage. " _Don't you ever accuse me of something like that again!_ " he yelled at her, the fury inside his head blotting out everything else for a long moment, even the guilt. He un clenched his jaw and looked at her, at his beautiful little bird, his warrior goddess. The golden hair like a sun that lit the way out of darkness. The blue-grey eyes like the ocean after a storm. The body like a fever dream of pleasure and violence wrapped up together.   
    
The heart that held up under the sometimes unrelenting fear and horror of their lives; the spirit unbent, unbowed, unbroken by even the bleakest despair.   
    
The sharp deadly mind that never stopped planning, learning, scheming until the mission was done and her little family of heroes was safe again.   
    
The soul that she'd shared with him, in return for half of his own.   
    
"If you actually believe I would use that against you then I'll turn around right now and we'll go file the divorce papers." He pulled the car to a stop in the middle of the still empty road. "I'm serious, Bobbi. We'll get a divorce and then I'll shoot myself in the head, okay?" 

She shook her head, a tear tracking down her cheek, then turned her face away from him. He clenched his hands on the wheel and started driving again, a sick chasm opening up in the centre of his chest where his heart should be.   
    
It was long minutes before she spoke again, turned away from him, her shoulders heaving. Eventually, she leaned into the back and grabbed her travel purse, hauling out a wet wipe and rubbing it over her face. When she looked at him her eyes were puffy and red. "I'm going to ask you this once and there's a lot riding on your answer. Once, okay? I swear I can't get angrier or more hurt right now so you have nothing to lose." She took a deep breath. "Is there anything else that you've lied to me about? Not lies of omission; not operational things. Out right, deliberate, personal lies like telling me your brother--my brother in law--is dead when he's not?"   
    
"No," Clint said almost before the words were out of her mouth. "There may be things in my life I've forgotten--I've taken a few hits on the head over the years--but this is the only thing I ever concealed from you. And you're the only one I've told the truth to, ever. No one knows about Barney but you and I. Not even Nat."   
    
She stared at him when he stopped speaking, her blue-grey eyes piercing despite the tears still clinging to her lashes .   
    
"What?" he said when the silence drew out too far. "Look, if you're going to garrote me or something let me pull over first."   
    
"You are," she said deliberately, "much much smarter than you give yourself credit for. If you'd started making excuses just then I was going to punch your jaw into your nasal cavities."   
    
"I don't have an excuse. I lied to you and the only way I could live with it was by pretending Barney really was dead. But then he got in touch with me and...he said he wanted to meet you. And god fucking help me, I want you to meet him." His voice got small now, smaller than hers , almost lost in the wind. "I want you to like him."   
    
She reached out and touched his arm, her fingers hard with callus and rigid with suppressed emotions. "I'll try. You haven't told me much that makes me other than pissed off at him but...he's the only blood family we've got. I should at least try."   
    
_We_. Clint's heart started again at that word. "So...no divorce court?"   
    
"Eh, I don't like half your stuff that much," she snorted. "Besides, how would we split up Natasha in the settlement?"   
    
"You can have Steve, Tony, Sam and a player to be named later," he joked reflexively. He could tell she was still angry and emotional but this was at least surface normal for them. In his head he was planning a weekend of 'oh, god, forgive me' debauchery to make Caligula blush. He'd make her lose consciousness at least three times, he promised himself. Whenever she let him touch her again.  

A dirt road with fresh tire tracks opened up to their left and Clint swung the car onto the bumpy surface; in the distance they saw a rather ramshackle thick iron girder bridge rear up against the dry brush and dirt. In the middle of the bridge, a car was sitting with a man leaning against the hood, idly throwing rocks over the side. 

As they approached, the man looked up, then straightened. He was a big guy, from the scale of the car, nearly as tall as Steve; he had an impressive build, strong chest and long arms. His reddish-brown hair was cut indifferently short. As Clint pulled the convertible closer, the man  turned his face into the sun and the resemblance to the archer was instantly clear: the same square, masculine jaw, the same cheekbones. The same pug-dog nose. This new guy, however, looked somehow...coarser than Clint. As though made from some rougher material. 

He didn't wave, or move, or do anything to acknowledge them as they both exited the stopped rental car. Bobbi slide into step a pace behind Clint, her eyes shrewd and cold again, clear of tears. 

Clint started forward, his body language eager. "Barn!" 

Barney stopped him dead with a hand gesture. 

"You came. You fucking idiot, little brother." His voice was oddly higher than Clint's, flat in the overheated air. 

There was a hum that both Avengers recognized and an arrow was suddenly sticking out of Clint's chest. 

No.

 _Clint had caught an arrow aimed for his chest._ He spun in place, whipping the projectile by hand back along the line it had come from. In the framework above there was a yell of pain. 

Barney stood open-handed in shock. "Well, hell," he said in a mild voice. 

Bobbi had turned and leapt for the convertible--and their weapons--when a man in a fancy-dress scale armor, holding a straight longsword, leapt nimbly down from above to land in front of her, followed by an indeterminate number of minions in similar garishly costumes. She was totally surrounded at least two deep. They had all been hanging onto the back sides of the girders, waiting in ambush.

"And who is--" he started to say.

Bobbi leapt from one stride to the next, spearing both knees into his chest and sending him flying backwards into the car with a crash. She spun in mid-air, landed lightly and kicked the nearest thug in the face with a chuck clad foot. He went down, unconscious. In the next breath, Clint was beside her, both of them falling into a nearly mechanical lock-step of unarmed combat: _Punch, elbow knee. Knee punch kick. Kick kick sweep. Punch._

Within seconds the crew of thugs was cut in more than half and they had almost reached the car...his bow, her combat batons. Their phones and ID cards. 

The humming came again.

Bobbi went down on one knee with a grunt and there was a spray of blood against the cherry red of the car, close enough to touch. Clint broke a man's jaw with one punch, dropped down next to her and covered her torso with his body without pausing. Under him, he heard her snarl. _Alive._

"Get your fucking bow and kill that asshole," she said. There was blood on her neck and down one side of her pink shirt but she sounded like herself.

He reached out and grabbed the edge of the car door (he had long arms) and flipped himself up and over, into the back seat. His left hand came down on his bow case and then he was over on the other side, the bow was out and he had three arrows strung. He popped up and took out three of the guys in one shot, seeing Bobbi on her feet and fighting as he did. He dropped back down, strung more arrows and...

The sound of furious hand-to-hand combat suddenly silenced pulled him to the back of the car where he could see what was going on.

Bobbi was standing very still, her body language tense, fists clenched at her sides, surrounded by the remaining thugs. The man with the sword was holding it to her throat...and behind him, past Barney, a team of men with high powered rifles had appeared. They were all pointed at Bobbi.

Barney was leaning against the car again, his head down like a whipped dog.

"Clinton?" Called the swordsman--and he was actually called the Swordsman. At least that had been on the marquee of the circus tents when Clint was a child. "Clinton, perhaps to come out now, bow down, hands up. Or I shall bleed out your little chippy here."

"Oh, you are so fucking dead, Duquesne," Bobbi said quietly. "If Clint doesn't put an arrow in you I will break every bone in your body. In alphabetical order."

"Gracious! Such language from such a pretty girl." Swordsman said in that exaggerated faux-French accent of his.

"I'm almost forty, fuck wit," Bobbi grated.

"Ah, well, no loss then," Duquesne responded, dropping the affectations for a sentence. He jammed the sword against the base of her throat, then drew it back with a crimson tip. "Stand up, Clinton, without the bow."

Clint laid his bow in the dirt and stood up with his hands in the air. 

They all heard Barney groan. "You are such an idiot, Clint."

A man almost as big as he was landed next to him, dressed in bright purple and black. He was carrying a bow, had a bleeding wound on his arm under a large rip in the fabric, a grey crew cut and cuffed Barney on the side of the head with one hand as he started towards the larger group. "Shut up, moron."

The look the older Barton brother gave Trick Shot behind his back was at least as lethal as the threat in Bobbi's voice moments ago. But he trailed in behind the older archer like any obedient pet.

While that was happening the remaining thugs had--by the expedient process of alternating holding guns to various heads--managed to get handcuffs on both Clint and Bobbi. Clint had straight up refused to engage with Swordsman at all until he got a closer look at Bobbi's injuries.

The arrow had struck her in the join of her shoulder and neck, on the right side--in nearly the same place she'd been hit but flying glass inside the first four hours he'd met her (1 yet again). It had torn through skin and muscle but nothing else, though it was still bleeding heavily. There was another bleeding wound at the base of her throat, just a nick.

Clint looked over and met Duquesne's cold dark eyes. "For that cut, you lose a finger. Pick one, _Jacques_."

Duquesne punched him across the jaw with the hilt of his sword, sending him reeling into Bobbi who braced herself and held him upright. She was always and ever his rock.

His head on her shoulder he whispered: "Stay alive. No matter what happens. I will find you."

"Funny," she lipped into his ear. "I was going to say that to you."

"Faster than divorce court, though, if you're still mad?"

"Oh, I'm still mad but you're not getting out of this that easy."  
    
Trick Shot reached them, grabbed Clint by the arm and dragged him away from Bobbi. "Stop pawing the lady, little Barton. We've got other things for you to be doing."

Bobbi watched Clint's face as though they were the only people there, under the blazing sun, on an old bridge, the air smelling of gasoline, blood, dirt and sweat. He looked younger, suddenly. Younger, scared, tentative: a child surrounded by violent mercurial men he had to please to stay alive, get the training he ached for, that he needed down to his soul.

Then he looked at her and Clint-the-lost-orphan-boy faded back into the past. It was Hawkeye who straightened his spine and spat at Trick Shot's feet.

"Nice shot, Buck. You nearly hit something useful that second time," Clint drawled in the exact tone of voice that made Captain America squint his eyes and count to ten. 

Trick Shot punched him in the stomach, his face going red. He reared back to punch Clint again and Barney stepped between them.

"Chisholm, if you get started here you'll never stop. Just give it a rest." Barney looked at his brother and both Clint and Bobbi could see his eyes were whirling with turmoil. "You said you wanted to take your time."

"Take your time for what?" Bobbi asked carefully as she was manhandled away from the convertible by some of the thugs, closer to the Barton brothers. 

Trick Shot laughed. "Oh, just about everything little lady. Your boy isn't going to be much of an archer when I'm done with him."

Bobbi shrugged. "Probably still be a better shot than you."  
   
Trick Shot charged over and punched her, splitting her lip. Bobbi reeled away from the blow, turned and kicked him precisely in the solar plexus with the ball of her right foot. She looked like a still frame from a Bruce Lee movie. Trick Shot folded over like paper and had to be helped to the other car, to the chorus of Clint laughing. Barney just stood still, his hands clenching and un-clenching at his sides.

Even Swordsman was grinning a little when he spoke again. "I see Madame has great spirit, as I would expect from any lady who could hold onto my Hawk here for more than a fling. But, alas, alack, I think our time together is swiftly drawing to a close. I have my prize and I'm disinclined to stand about in the open with it." He chucked Clint under the chin like a fond uncle. "I treasure our time together and don't want to risk it being cut short."

He stepped back and surveyed his captives again. "Though I seem to have an embarrassment of riches here. What is the collective noun for Bartons, anyway?"

"An ass-kicking. An ass-kicking of Bartons," Clint responded instantly. 

_That_ made Barney laugh. He was joined by Bobbi for a moment.

Swordsman smiled. It did not reach his eyes under his domino mask. "How very droll of you, Clinton. But I only have plans for you at home--cosy little place, you'll love it--and I've prepared nothing suitable for the lady."

Clint and Bobbi both tensed, sensing the sudden menace of the words. Barney just stared at Duquesne with a confused expression.

"Three Bartons is two too many, I'm afraid," Swordsman continued. He looked over at one of the men with the guns. "Cull the herd for me, will you?"

Barney spun on one heel, fast as thought, and dove straight into Clint and Bobbi, arms out to sweep them both backwards. Swordsman's free hand flashed out, grabbed Clint's left arm, hauled him out of his brother's path.

The headlong, desperate tackle of the older Barton brother took both himself and Bobbi over the railing of the bridge.

They hit the roiling, churning water of the wide river below and vanished.   
    
    
    
    
    
    
 


	2. Depending On The Kindness of Strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when you dump an Avenger and her good-for-nothing brother-in-law into the same river?

Bobbi managed a deep breath before she hit the water--butt first, thankfully, so the air stayed in her lungs--and Barney lost his hold on her almost instantly. Ignoring which was up and which down she tucked her knees to her chest and pulled her bound arms in front of her body.  The river was deep enough that she only felt her feet scrape the bottom at the very end of her gravity assisted drop and fast enough her next priority was to get to the surface where she could see things like rocks that might, you know, kill her.  
   
She kicked off from the bottom and was almost at the surface when a big arm wrapped around her middle and pulled her back down. She flailed hard against the grip and felt another arm wrap itself around her neck.  
   
For gods sake, Barney had knocked them both off a bridge and now he was trying to drown her!  
   
Then the one arm pulled her into a big body and settled her in a swimmer's rescue hold and she realized he was actually trying _to save her_. And pulling her down again in the process.  
   
She reached back and clawed her hand across his face, making his grip spasm open. Bobbi swam up and away from the man with powerful strokes, surfaced and drew a huge breath. They had already been swept out of sight of the bridge. She looked around, seeing no place she could climb the canyon like banks, waiting for Barney to resurface so she _could hold his head under again_. The combination of rage and terror she was feeling was like being shot up with heavy painkillers not actually strong enough to help with the magnitude of the injury: she felt weak, light-headed and at the same time like a burning ball of lava was weighing down her torso.  
   
Barney never surfaced and despite herself she found her body pulling in oxygen and going back under.  
   
She spotted him underwater near by, limbs waving frantically but getting weaker. Spearing down she wrapped one of his hands in both of hers--still chained together by the cuffs--and hauled him to the surface using only her legs.  
   
In open air again, she looked downstream to see the surface of the river relatively unbroken, with the steep sides unabated at least until the next curve. Without perspective she couldn't judge the distance: might have been a hundred or a few thousand meters. Clint, she thought with a burning stab from the lava rock in her stomach, would have been able to tell her the distance to the centimeter. Bobbi held Barney's head above water until he started to cough and twitch , then let him go to sink or swim on his own.  
   
She calmly, methodically dislocated her left thumb and pulled her hand out of the cuff, then popped it back in against her own chest plate. The pain she drove down into the oil well of agony forming in her heart: she could set that all ablaze for fuel later. When she had a plan. Or somewhere to stand up.  
   
The blood was still leaking from her neck wound and she felt a thick chill across her spine. She couldn't afford the injury, the blood loss, the physical weakness. She couldn't afford to be human right now.  
   
Mockingbird, the Avenger, dropped down over her like a mantle, all controlled violence and ruthless precision.  
   
Without thinking, ignoring the sudden surprised noise from the water behind her, she started swimming with the current in a powerful overhand stroke, headed downstream.  
   
Long minutes later, Barney dragged himself out of the water on the same beach where she had landed, at the base of a natural cove-like outcropping in the stone wall. This particular chunk of rock had worn down into a slope that lead up to higher ground. Looking north, the bridge was not even visible. There was no way to tell how far they had been swept.  
   
The big man vomited water for a while, then staggered to his feet and stared at Mockingbird.  
   
She was sitting on a flat rock holding a small pen-like device to her neck wound. As she tracked it slowly down the slash a foam discharged from the tip that went from bright red to off white in a few seconds; whatever it was it seemed to stop the bleeding. Her face was cold and set as she finished her remarkable first aid, reached down and tucked the pen into a compartment in the sole of one of her shoes. She threw Barney a look so venomous it literally stopped him in his tracks then stood up and turned her back to him, clearly intent on heading out of the cannon. Her soaking wet clothes clung to her like body paint.  
   
A low, tiny noise sounded from behind her, just the barest hint of a shadow of a wolf-whistle.  
   
Bobbi turned and crossed the distance between herself and her brother in law in less than a heart beat.  
   
Her first blow was an opened handed slap across his face, astonishingly powerful, staggering him on his feet. Her second was a precise knee to the gut, making his lungs give up the last of the water and all of the oxygen he'd used to replace it and causing him to double over. The third strike was a downward hooking blow from the back muscles the media called "the Captain America punch": it hit him on the neck and he blacked out as it--for a heartbeat--cut off the flow of blood to his brain.  
   
When he came to, Bobbi was kneeling on his chest with her thumbs pressed into his carotid arteries, making the edge of his vision go black.  
   
"You fucking worthless scumbag piece of shit," she said in a calm, even tone more terrifying than shouting.  "You set up your little brother--the one you abandoned to the wolves decades ago. You sold him out, when all he wanted to do was introduce you to the woman he married. A woman he lied to for you, knowing it might destroy his marriage. You knock me into the fucking river when Clint and I were about to end those fucks then you almost drown me out of sheer stupidity. And once you're out of the water you actually god damn _dare to ogle me_?"  
   
Bobbi pressed down, making his limbs turn into jelly. "You have fifteen seconds to give me a reason not to tear out your throat with my fingernails right here." 

Barney's life flashed in front of his eyes and he had to agree with her assessment of him. Mostly he was in awe of that fact that a woman--literally 50 pounds lighter than him soaking wet--had just put him down with three strikes and was now about to kill him with her bare hands. He could not move. She felt like she weighed a ton on his chest, her hands like steel on his throat. 

_He'd always expected to go out in a fight but he'd thought it might be less... embarrassing._

"I know...where they're taking him," he managed to gasp as the blackness closed in. 

"I don't believe you," she whispered in his ear. 

The sound of a rifle shot speared over head. She didn't stop pressing down, just turned her head to look over her shoulder. 

"Missy, I don't know what's going on her but I think maybe you should get off that fella," called a rough voice, cracking like the owner hadn't used it much lately. 

Bobbi stood up, her hands well to the side and started to walk towards the voice at a slow, drifting pace, as though without conscious volition. 

"Thank Christ. Can I use your phone? It's an emergency, " she called as she advanced. 

Barney sat up weakly, coughing and rubbing his throat. At the top of the slope a dark-skinned man with a white beard stood, wearing patched jeans and a dirty long-sleeved shirt, wide-brimmed hat on his head. He had a rifle but it wasn't pointed at the blond woman anymore, just hanging loose in his hands. 

"Don't got one," he said slowly. 

That made her pause. "What, really? Not even for an Avenger?" she said, her voice sly and hopeful. 

"What's an Avenger?" the man asked her, suspiciously. "Sounds like a gang; I don't truck with gangs." 

Bobbi laughed, a sharp bark. "You're not wrong. We're like the world's politest street gang, really. I've said so myself." Still drifting closer to him, her body language pure innocence, even from behind. 

Barney could not help his brain from completing that sentence 

_Roughly from behind._

Then he whimpered, irrationally afraid she'd heard his thoughts. Since she didn't spin around and snap his neck, he might be safe. This time. 

"Do you have a radio or something?" 

"Nope," the man said suspiciously. "No government agent's going to find me with those satellites and black helicopters of theirs. You just stop right there, missy. You best quit your lying and your fussing and tell me what'yer really doing out here." 

Bobbi stopped her amble perhaps fifteen feet away from him, near the bottom of the thirty degree slope he was standing on. She looked up, squinting into the bright washed out sky. "Or else?" 

"Or else I might have to shoot you," he replied gruffly. 

"You're not going to do that," she said with a smile in her voice. 

"I surely will, missy." 

"You can't," she said simply. 

"Hmmph. I surely can." 

"No, you can't because that's a seventy five, sorry seventy six Ruger No 1 single shot hunting rifle and you haven't reloaded it," she said with a nod at the gun in his hands. 

He looked down at the weapon, right hand going into a pocket, clearly for a bullet. 

Mockingbird flew... 

...straight up the slope in three tumbling passes, feet over hands, spinning to push off against a big rock, going right over the man in mid air. When she landed behind him, she had the gun in her hands. 

"And also I can do that," she said. She snapped open the breach, checked it--then handed it back to him. 

"Nice gun. Always thought the single shots get a bad rep. But then I prefer precision to spray. Unless it's a shotgun." 

The man stared at her, his mouth open. "What....what...what is you, missy?" He made no attempt to reload the weapon now, which showed a high level of intelligence. 

"I told you, sir, I'm an Avenger. Think of me as a really lethal acrobat with a moral code and you'll be pretty close to the truth. So, no phone, no radio. Got a car? No? A motorcycle? No." 

She looked over his shoulder at Barney, as though remembering what he'd said when she was choking him. 

"Do you have a fucking map?" 

***** 

Duncan--the old man turned out to be named Duncan, though he wouldn't give his last name--eventually took them back to his patch as he referred to the abandoned copper mine he had apparently started squatting in about twenty years ago. It wasn't far from the river--he'd fashioned a crude pipe aqueduct to provide himself and his several mutt dogs with fresh water for themselves and his little vegetable patch. 

That was why it had been abandoned, as it turned out. Too close to the water table--the shafts kept filling up with water. A perfect place to be a modern hermit. Duncan had moved in after his divorce and just never left. 

He'd set up a windmill for a few power tools and combined a few of the shacks into a surprisingly neat and comfortable home. By the time they had walked the twenty minutes or so to his place, he and Bobbi were fine friends; he said himself he hadn't had the undivided attention of a pretty woman in years. Barney trailed behind them feeling like a piece of toilet paper stuck to her shoe. 

Bobbi complimented the set up, sincerely, and paused to greet each of the dogs as they loped up. She did it the proper way, crouching down, hand out low, head turned away. They had all sniffed her, licked her and barked happily at her. 

They all growled at Barney. One of them tried to bite him. 

She laughed. 

Barney glowered at her, then looked closer. Under the forced cheer, her eyes had the million-mile stare of someone scrabbling at the very frayed end of their personal rope. He had a feeling if she fell, she was going to take him with her, just on principle. He started trying to keep as much distance between them as possible, and keep himself closer to the old man. She might not kill him outright if he had a human shield. 

In the shade of the little awning Duncan had set up, one last dog was lying, a big mostly Alsatian female. She didn't even look up, thumping her tail weakly when the old man came over but nothing else. His face under the hat and beard and wrinkles was hard to read but his pain was clear. 

Bobbi walked over and looked down at the animal. 

"What happened?" She asked, kneeling in the dirt by her head, laying her hand close to the dry cracked nose. 

"Not sure. Think she fought off some coyotes few night ago--that's what it sounded like--and she looked fine the next day. Then, two days ago, I sees blood on her forepaw and then she can't walk anymore. I was out trying to find a rabbit or something, hoping the meat might give her some strength." Duncan looked at the four other dogs, his eyes wet. "These is all her pups, all that lived from her last litter. Won't risk her life to have any more, no sir. She'd been my only friend for ten years and more. I know I gotta lose her some day but I was hoping it would be peaceful, like. Not hurting." 

Bobbi reached down and touched the dog's upper paw, gently pulling aside hair matted with blood. "Get me some clean water, please. I can do something about the pain, at least, I think." 

Barney leaned against the wall of the shack, hoping he'd been forgotten, his mind racing. She was desperate to save Clint, he knew, desperate enough that she might have hurt this innocent old man if he'd made her and now she was stopping to help his dog? 

What the hell? 

Bobbi cleaned the paw, baring a slash in the skin underneath that had red, inflamed edges. It actually was a puncture all the way through the meat. "Wow. You're a strong cuss, if you walked on that for a day before collapsing," she said gently to the animal, stroking her ear. "Us tough chicks have to stick together, right?" 

She reached down and pulled that little pen thing out of her shoe. "This is an experimental liquid bandage. It's impregnated with antiseptics, antibiotics and a very strong topical analgesic. It will stop the bleeding, pack the wound, dull the pain and speed healing." She touched her own wound. "I used it on myself not an hour ago. May I try it on her? I don't know if it will save her but at least she won't be hurting anymore." 

Duncan stared. "How much is that stuff worth?" 

"Literally priceless. Right at the moment, my friend Bruce and I are the only people on the planet who know how to make it. We're trying to figure out how to stably mass-produce it and then we'll release it into the public domain." 

"And you'd use it on my dog?" 

"Like I said, us mean bitches have to stick together," Bobbi said with a smile that trembled. 

At Duncan's nod, Bobbi touched the pen to the underside of the wound. A few second later, the foam spewed out of the top and solidified. The dog whined once, then slowly leaned over to sniff the foam. She looked up at Duncan and Bobbi and her tail thumped again, with more strength than before. Bobbi fed her a few handfuls of water which she drank strongly. 

She stood up, handed the pen over to Duncan. "The foam will dissolve as the flesh heals around it. There's enough left in this for maybe three-four similar doses. If anything else happens around here you can't fix with that dime store first aid kit you have." She glowered at Barney, then looked back at Duncan who was fighting back tears.. "Now, about that map?" 

On the rickety table in the shade, Duncan laid out an out-dated survey map of the whole county they were in. 

Bobbi pointed at the river they had been in, and the bridge where the ambush had occurred. "We were there. Where are we now?" 

Duncan pointed. The map was so old the mine wasn't even on it. 

Bobbi snarled at Barney. "Where are they taking him, fuck wit?" Barney slouched over and stared at the markings on the paper for a long time. 

"Clock's ticking, asshole," Bobbi hissed at him. "If you're wasting time so they can get away, I will snap both your femurs and leave you for the coyotes." 

Duncan looked at them both. "I thought you said this was your brother in law?" He looked at Barney curiously. "Also, who's your brother that this woman married him? King Kong?" 

Bobbi snorted. "He really is my in-law. He's also responsible for setting up the ambush that ended up with both of us in the river." 

"So, you are criminals," Duncan said flatly. 

"He's a criminal. I'm...the mostly opposite. Listen," she said, rubbing her face. "This is all really complicated and if you'd had any contact with the outside world in the last few years it would be easier to explain. The outside's...changed. There are worse things out there now that shadowy government agencies with black helicopters. There are better things too. There's villains who want to destroy the world--like out of a comic book. There are gods and monsters walking among us. There's magic and technology and people like me who specialize in going out and doing really dangerous things in the name of helping save lives." 

"I'm not sure I should believe you." 

She smiled. "Yeah, I know. It all sounds nuts. But consider, for a moment, what you've seen me do. And that's in wet clothes and no gear. Give me my full tac suit and weapons and I can put on an amazing show." 

"She's telling the truth, dude," Barney said. "She's like a super-hero. I've seen her on TV all the time." 

Bobbi looked at him with reluctant gratitude. "My husband is also one of those people. But--like me, too--he's made enemies over the years. This asshole works with--" 

"Worked," Barney grunted. "They were going to shoot me too, remember? Duquesne promised me--" he broke off, looking back at the map, his hand going out to trace a few roads, his lips moving. 

She grabbed his fingers in a crushing grip. "What, Barney? What did the Swordsman promise you?" She twisted, sending his shoulder slamming into the table as his whole body contorted with pain. "What are they going to do to Clint?" 

"Swordsman just wants to hurt him, maybe not even kill him. It's Trick Shot--ow, god damn it you're breaking my fingers!--Trick Shot wants to take his right arm." 

She released his hand as though he was made of acid. "What?" Her voice was weak, tiny, pale as her suddenly blood drained face. "Why?" 

"Cause Clint's a better shot than he is. Cause Clint punched him with that hand when he left. Cause he's a crazy psycho. That's why." Barney jerked his head back to the map, pointed to a flat area almost off the edge. "Here. That's where they're going." 

Bobbi made calipers out of her fingers, measured to the scale of the map, her lips moving in frantic calculations. 

"It's, that's...It'll take at least eight hours to cover that distance. At my b-b-b-b-b-best and not having to fight a small horde of thugs at the end of it. Without gear and water and ff-f-f-f-f-f-food, proper shoes. In the blazing heat of the desert. How long will it take to drive there?" 

"Four hours. They didn't want to meet closer in case Clint brought his new buddies." 

She staggered back from the table. 

"Can't...c-c-c-c-can't make it in t-t-t-t-t-time. C-c-c-c-c-couldn't even c-c-c-c-call in help in th-th-th-th-that. C-c-c-c-clint, they're going to mu-mu-mu-mu-mutilate Clint and I can't save him." She clutched her stomach with both arms, then fell to her knees, her breath sawing in her throat in a sound of the most profound anguish. She wailed a moment, rocking back and forth... 

...then she stopped and looked up and her face was something no longer human. She looked straight at Barney. Her stutter vanished. 

"They're going to mutilate Clint, I can't save him and _it's all your fault_." Her voice was still, flat, even. 

Barney turned and ran. In three steps, she caught him. 

She knocked him down with one kick to the knee, sending him rolling into a pile of old tires. The next second she was on his back, her arm against his throat, squeezing with killing intent. Barney rolled over, tried to crush her with his weight, managed to get one hand under her forearm and make enough space that he could pull in some air into his lungs. She released her grip and kicked him off her, both feet into the small of his back sending him tumbling. He reeled, trying to stand, and met a knee to the jaw the stunned him and laid him out flat. 

Bobbi loomed over him, her fist raised and started to rain down punches to his face and throat, each one feeling like it was about to cave in his skull. Barney covered his nose, his jaw and tried to roll away from her. She kicked him in the stomach, growling like some feral animal, snarling for his blood. 

The rifle spoke again, just over their heads. 

She froze, hauled herself up and off Barney as though she were a puppet on strings. Barney had the confused, blood-hazed impression of two different expressions warring on her face: the creature of death and someone else who was fighting for control. 

"Missy, you just hold on there! I think I know a way you can get to your man in time but you're going to need that one. Alive, walking. Not beaten half to death!" 

"Talk," Mockingbird gasped, her chest heaving. "Fast. Or I can't promise who's going to be listening in here." 

"There's a river not marked on this map. Cuts right through that range in the middle. Maybe an hour's travel on foot, then maybe two more on the water, get you right near where you need to go. I've got a canoe you can use. But strong as you are, you can't carry it, paddle it, alone. You'll need him."    
The new expression--the one that didn't want to kill him--took over her face. She straightened. "Where? Show me." She looked down at Barney and the death-mask came back for a breath. "Get on your feet you worthless piece of shit. And move." 

_*****_

They left Duncan behind with his rifle and Bobbi's promise that she would return the canoe as soon as she could. 

_"Is there anything else you don't have that you want?"_

_"Books. If you come back, bring me some books. History or something."_

_"If we make it in time, I'll bring you a whole damned library. Don't let your girl fight anymore coyotes."_

To Barney's surprise, Bobbi nixed the idea of a two person carry, instead constructing a tump head strap with a rag for padding that held the thwart of the battered old metal canoe against her shoulders. 

"Just make sure the back end doesn't get caught on anything," she snapped at him, then started off at a trot in the direction Duncan had pointed them. She acted like she didn't even care if he followed her. 

So he followed, unhooking tumbleweeds and dodging the occasional scorpion the canoe kicked out from under a rock as it passed. 

"Why the hell am I even doing this?" He muttered. "You've tried to kill me like twice in the last hour." 

"That's only one less than you've tried to kill me," she retorted. "But actually, I don't care if you stay or not. I'd prefer you left. I don't trust you, I don't like you and I don't want to talk to you. Help, or not. I'm not debating with you. You should be used to abandoning your little brother by now." 

Stung and--well, honestly--not even really sure where he'd go if he left Barney followed Mockingbird into the wastes. The trek took long enough that their clothes dried in the heat and the sun. They both had the beginnings of sunburns on their faces and arms. 

They found the river and launched the canoe relatively smoothly. Bobbi made him sit in the front to keep an eye on him. 

Strangely, they settled into the rhythm of paddling with something like ease. They were both hurting, her from her fight and fall, him from the several times she'd beaten the shit out of him but that at least made them evenly matched for a while. 

They made good time, Barney could hear her muttering behind him as she gauged it from the angle of the sun. So after maybe a mostly silent and peaceful hour of paddling he heard himself speaking to her. 

"Blondie--" 

"If you call me that again I will rip your ears off." 

"Uh, sorry. Is Bobbi okay?" 

"Fine. What?" 

"What'd Clint ever tell you about me?" 

"He told me you were dead. He lied for your sorry hide, breaking one of the only rules I told him would mean I divorced him. I have no idea why. I wouldn't spit on you if you were on fire." 

Barney winced at the contempt in her voice. "But did he talk about anything from when we were kids?" 

"Yeah." She fell silent again. 

When it was clear she wasn't continuing, Barney looked at her over his shoulder. Her face was covered in silent tears. He jerked his eyes forward hastily. 

"He told me," she said in a clear cold voice, "that you'd sometimes steal food for him when there wasn't anything in the house and he was too young to get his own. He said you'd take the blame for stuff neither of you had done just to stop your father from beating on him." Her voice became a thing of living hatred, as it had back at the copper mine. "He told me when he refused to be Swordsman's good little pet killer you stood and watched Trick Shot break his arm and literally throw him away. I have loathed you since then." 

"What the fuck as I supposed to do? Clint made them both mad enough to kill him. It was hard enough to just get them to throw him out of the gang," Barney whined under his breath. 

"You were supposed to protect him, you--" and she finally seemed to be out of names to call him. Somehow it wasn't an improvement; he suspected the next step was she ripped off his head and pissed down his neck. "You were supposed to act like his brother and his friend and the only family he had left. You were supposed to act like a _man_." 

"Oh, and what was he doing? He was an idiot who didn't _think_ about the stuff he said or did. He just slammed around like a pinball, wrecking everything he touched, all my plans for us, with his high and mighty attitude. A couple of years with the Circus we'd have had enough money to get out, take off on our own. Open an archery school or something; I can shoot too. I was trying to protect him. I was trying to make a future for us!" Barney declared with some passion, then hunched down. 

And the next thing he was going to feel was her oar against the side of his head and then it'd just be the blackness again... 

To his surprise he heard her laugh, a quick coughing bark. 

"Gods, you actually believe that don't you? Well, let me say this, Charles Bernard Barton, Clint may not have known exactly how to be subtle back then but he was a fucking _kid_. And he still had more strength of character than you did; then you have. Than you're capable of having. You know how I know that?" 

She leaned forward till he could feel her breath on the back of his neck. 

"Because out of the same pain, the same fear; the same abuse and anger and confusion we got two different men, didn't we? Clint, who made himself into a hero." She laughed again, a puff of air against his sweat damp skin that made him shiver. "And you. Who turned himself into a smarter version of the abusive, controlling, vicious prick who fathered you both." 

Barney did not speak to her again until they made landfall. 


	3. The Collective Noun for Bartons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then there were three....

Clint spent the four hours it took them to drive him to the Circus of Crime's 'new' lair face down on the floor of the back seat of the big old sedan Barney had been driving. Duquesne had attached a loop of rope to the chain of his cuffs and was amusing himself by holding it taut towards his feet. It put a fair amount of pressure on Clint's shoulders that way. He had to close his eyes and concentrate not to grunt with the pain. Chisholm kept his foot on the back of Clint's neck the whole time, grinding his face into the moldy carpet with something like sexual pleasure. 

Years after leaving the Circus, Clint had twigged that Trick Shot's obsession with him hadn't been entirely fatherly. He'd always felt vaguely...gross over a few incidents that had occurred in his young teens. Not the sexual aspects of it--he was straight, yeah, but guys hitting on him (which happened) didn't bug him--the predatory, abusive parts. It had never been bad enough to traumatize him but the unease and the frequency had become more and more marked as he got older. He'd wondered if Barney had noticed. When he was about sixteen and his final growth spurt had settled down (and he'd developed the beginnings of his adult musculature), it seemed like Barn was always around when he was with Trick Shot. 

At the time he'd thought it was jealousy.

Clint winced. Maybe the whole 'misunderstanding' thing went both ways between the brothers Barton.

He vaguely wondered if it would be better or worse to get stopped by the police at the moment. On the one hand, it would be a delay and a possible call to the Avengers; on the other, they'd probably kill the poor cop and well...he was already dreading the conversation where he explained all this to the team. If they had to drag him out of the back of a crummy car in the Nevada desert, bound and helpless and then he had to explain to Natasha and Steve that he'd last seen Bobbi going over the side of a bridge he'd pretty much have to kill himself right there.

After they found Bobbi, of course.

"I can't believe he brought the damn woman anyway," Trick Shot muttered to Swordsman, making Clint perk up his ears. "I swear, the stupid is genetic. Do you figure Barney fucked up the instructions or the little idiot ignored them?"

"Eh," Duquesne muttered. "Could be either. Hardly matters now. We're well rid of them both. Barney had out-lived his limited usefulness and the woman was trouble in a very pretty package. I'm only concerned because it means we'll have to abandon the base for a few months. Two Avengers going missing in the same area? That over-muscled boy scout of theirs will tear the state apart looking for them. At least her body will have washed well down stream."

 _No, it won't because she's not dead, you asshole,_ Clint thought to himself. The little pang of fear and doubt he swept ruthlessly aside. _My brother did not just get my wife killed._

Please.

In time he let himself sink into the blackness behind his eyes, the same blackness he looked for when he was sitting in a sniper's blind for half a day waiting for his target to show. He went away from his body and his mind made pretty patterns behind his eye lids.

It wasn't sleep, really. It was unconscious awareness. He could snap out of it in a breath when he needed too. 

So when the car rolled to a stop Clint was as awake and aware as he'd been at the beginning of the trip. Trick Shot opened his door and hauled Clint into the choking dirt one handed. Swordsman had apparently passed him the tether on the cuffs. 

Clint closed his eyes again to keep from being blinded and was dragged painfully to his feet by a hand on the back of his neck. He coughed and squinted--the sun was still high and bright--and tried to get his bearings fast. 

He was in a large parking lot, empty but for their cars, including his rental (driven by one of the thugs). The riflemen had apparently been outside hires, just for the ambush. They were no where to be seen. The pavement ended in front of what looked like a large circus tent--no, it was a blocky square building painted and decked out like a circus tent. Looking up, Clint could see where some sort of sign had once hung. The whole area was bordered with flimsy looking construction fencing. From this side the whole place looked and felt abandoned. Trick Shot and Swordsman -- along with about half the thugs -- dragged Clint into the front entrance of the building while the rest drove the cars around the back of the building.

Clint noticed they'd brought his and Bobbi's luggage out of the back of the car. 

_C'mon, fuck with our ID cards._ he thought to himself as he watched one of them dip a hand idly into Bobbi's purse.

Swordsman smacked the guy on the side of the head with the flat of his blade, drawn and extended in a flash. "Hands off, you fool. Heaven knows what kind of tricks and traps they have on their things. In fact, put all of that in the middle of the lot and leave it alone. We'll dump it in the river when we're done with him." He took Clint's bow case from one of the men and sent the rest back out with the rest of the luggage.

The building had once been--or had been intended to be--a hotel from the way the lobby was set up. It had an open balcony mezzanine level, a bank of elevators and a deserted front desk. It was remarkably clean and well laid out. There was a guard post out of site of the front door, another on the upper level and the furniture in the lobby was well worn but not broken or significantly stained. 

The thugs dispersed to what was clearly their assigned spots calmly and without undue chatter or rowdiness. 

Well, Duquesne always had run a tight ship. He and Chisholm dragged Clint to one side, through a large set of double doors. Inside was the never finished interior of what had been meant to be a show room or theatre. It was a long, wide open space with a high ceiling. It mostly sloped towards an area that would have been a stage and orchestra pit if it had been completed: just a slightly lower grading to the floor and then a step up to more floor and blank walls on every side. 

In the centre of the room, under a very bright spot light, an upside down U of metal bars had been welded to the floor.

"Welcome to your new home, little Barton," Trick Shot muttered into Clint's ear.

Clint stepped back onto his foot, hard, bearing down with all his weight. "I'm not seventeen anymore, Buck. And I wasn't little even then."

Trick Shot yanked up on the chain while pushing down on Clint's head, nearly dislocating his shoulders. Clint snarled, shaking with the pain, and stumbled as the older archer shoved him forward. He went down on one knee, got pulled down onto his back and dragged the rest of the way to the make-shift rack. 

Between them the two ringleaders of the Circus of Crime forced his arms over the horizontal bar, just high enough he had to stand on tip toe. The chain on the cuffs was fed through a ring on the floor and secured. His feet were chained to the side bars and Chisholm and Duquesne stepped back to examine their handiwork.

Clint's head was thrown back, his teeth showing, as he tried to lessen the pressure on his shoulders and arms a little. If he rested his feet on the ground his own body weight would pull the upper joints out. Standing on his toes, his legs were already screaming at him. He dragged his eyes to their faces, focussing on Swordsman, his expression going blank and still and cold. 

They both blinked and stepped back a pace.

"Like I said to Buck, _Jack_ I'm not seventeen anymore. I'm an Avenger. You clowns don't know what I'm capable of these days."

Trick Shot spat in his face. "Well, in a couple hours, I know what you won't be capable of: archery. Your right arm is mine, _little Barton_. Then we'll see about the rest of you."

Steve would have been proud of him. Despite the sudden gut-wrenching fear (still less than the moment in the car only a few hours ago when he thought Bobbi might want to leave him) Clint's only response to that was a smile.

*****

Bobbi and Barney pulled the canoe well out of the water, concealed it in some scrubby bushes and headed towards the roof of the building they had just seen. They shared out the last of the water Duncan had given them about half way there.

The land was mostly rocks, dirt and vegetation with thorns or burs or big, awkward root systems to trip them up.

Bobbi already had sun burned patches on her bare arms and legs and now she was bleeding freely from cuts as well as she scrambled over obstacles. Still, she didn't stop moving at a rock-steady lope. Her breathing never changed, her eyes constantly scanning the horizon.

Barney was gasping and struggling after maybe a mile.  
"How...how are you doing this? I'm in really good shape and...are you a machine or something?" he gasped at one of her infrequent stops, when he'd finally struggled up next to her. She wasn't waiting for him. She was studying the terrain.

"I'm an Avenger, asshole. Did you think that was an honorary title?" She turned and looked back at where they had left the canoe, seemed to be noting distances and angles.

"Yeah," he muttered without thinking, "I figured you got in for--"

Casually she reached over and grabbed neck of his T-shirt, dragging him closer to her. When she turned her head, their noses were almost touching. "What?" She smiled sweetly. "You thought I got in for what?"

 _I dare you to finished that sentence_ was the achingly clear subtext of her smile.

Barney shook his head. "Yeah, I'm really not that fucking stupid, lady. You want to beat me to a pulp, go ahead."

She snorted and let him go. "Just leave, Barney. From the map and what you told me there's a road that'a'way. Go and hitch a ride. They think you're dead; so be dead. Run, hide. Change your name and stay the fuck away from Clint. I don't need your help anymore and I sure as hell don't trust you."

He shook his head. "It's my fault Clint's in this mess. And--it's my fault you're mad at him. I got no where to go, lady. We're probably going to die out here but at least I can go out trying to help my brother."

"Yeah, that would be a nice change of pace for your personal history I'm sure," she said with contempt and disbelief. "If you can keep up, I'm not going to waste the energy to put you back down." She turned on him again. "But if I see the slightest hint you're not sincere about your oh-so-sudden change of character I will end you like a bad movie. You never get the chance to hurt Clint again."

Then she was off once more, moving like clockwork. 

Well, like clockwork with a magnificent ass. Barney didn't mind following her that much.

At the next stop she gestured him down then crawled up to the crest of a small hill and peeked over it. He crawled up next to her. 

"Yeah, that's it," he said. They were on a bluff over looking the front parking lot of the Circus of Crime's hideout.

"What the hell was this place?" She asked, scanning the building from as many angles as she could without exposing her head too much.

"Was supposed to be a theme hotel. They were going to build an interstate past here. There's a lake up the valley a ways; it was going to be a resort. Think it got killed by the governor or something. Vegas probably didn't want the competition."  
"Oh, fuck, I think that's our luggage out in the middle of the parking lot. Fuck fuck fuck. I mean, normally I'd be able to walk up and..."

She trailed off, giving him a suspicious look. "Forget I said that."

"Sure. I didn't understand it anyway."

"Hey, you have the Barton eye sight? Can you see if our weapons case is in the pile? Black oblong, metal clasps." 

Barney poked his head over the edge. "Nope." He described what was there and she nodded.

"Thanks. What's the set up inside? Standard hotel? Top few floors are just rooms?"

"Yeah. They have water and power hooked up but they only use like a third of the bottom floor and a few of the rooms. They keep the place in good shape."

"Internal doors locked?"

"Doubt it. Don't know for sure. I only saw the areas they used; those doors aren't locked except for the armory and the private rooms." 

"Security system?"

"Never saw anything. Guards at the entrances, 24/7."

She nodded at him with something like approval. "Good intell, thank you."

"Um, hey," he said tentatively. "Can I ask you something personal?"

"Sure," she said, giving him a side-eyed look.

"And if you don't like it you're going to punch me in the face, right?"

"Not in the face, no. And not punch. I have at least one knife I didn't lose in the water. I was saving it up." She smiled that smile again, the one that made him think of scalpels and needles and rooms that smelled of blood and pain.

"What do you weigh?"

That startled her. She slid back down behind the crest and looked over at him. "One eighty-ish. Why?"

"I was wondering how the fuck you hit like that, being a woman and all. You don't look like you weigh that much. I was wondering if you were...you know...one of those..."

She smiled again but this time it was a normal human expression, almost friendly. "I'm un-enhanced. I've just been doing this literally my whole life; I started training before puberty. It affects bones and muscles. And it's not like body building. It's whole body so I built it proportionally; I look smaller, lighter than I am. tend to flat, lean muscle anyway." She ran a hand over her face and looked very tired for a moment. "Barney, you really have no idea--no one does--what it means to do what we do, as Avengers. No matter...we train to exhaustion and beyond. Till we're passing out. Clint's broken my bones sparring, with my consent. I've stabbed him, literally. I've punched my best friend in the face hard enough to break her nose; I've been knocked unconscious by Captain America and woken up to him screaming at me to get up and fight."

"That sounds...hard."

"It has to be. Because we have to be harder on each other than our enemies will be to us. If we fail, Barney, we don't lose money, or a job. We maybe lose the _planet_. So we burn our selves like candles, like torches, like bonfires. We shed blood, break bones, spend our pain, our fear, probably our lives in the end. Because we have to. We stand between everyone on this planet and the things no one else can fight."

Barney looked away. "Clint does that?" He asked in a soft voice.

"Yeah. He does. He trains till his fingers are ground meat. I've watched him shoot with second degree burns on his hands; with a bullet wound draining blood into his chest, till he couldn't draw a breath. He kept hitting his targets, though."

"Why?"

"Cause he's an Avenger, Barney. It's what we do. If you must, you will."

"You people are nuts."

"Dude, I play video games with a Norse god. Beat that."

They smiled at each other a moment. 

"Right," she said briskly. "Let's go save your brother's arm, shall we?"

"Hang on. How?"

"From the top down, brother in law. From the top down."

*****

Now that they had him, Trick Shot and Swordsman didn't seem to be able to decide what to do with him. They had been arguing quietly in the darkness for long enough he was getting bored. No matter how much his arms hurt.

Clint threw out a shot in the dark, based on a hunch.

"What were you doing in Madripoor three years ago, Duquesne? Bobbi and I saw you. At the auction."

"Shut the fuck up, Clinton," Swordsman snapped, his accent gone.

"What's he talking about?" Trick Shot asked.

"Nothing."

"Bobbi and I were kidnapped off a commercial flight in Madripoor, Buck. A bunch of people who wanted us dead bought us at an auction. Swordsman showed up; we saw him. Didn't he tell you?"

He couldn't see them beyond a couple of moving shadows in the blackness outside the spot light but there was a sudden uptick in the muted anger in Trick Shot's voice.

"You said you didn't find--"

"I didn't...until it was too late. They'd already been bought and paid for. I tried to talk to Zemo, Madame Masque, about taking him off their hands but they both shut me down. I didn't want to...disappoint you."

"That's really not what it looked like to us," Clint called merrily. "It looked like you were in on the sale yourself."

Swordsman appeared out of the darkness holding his blade extended. Putting the lie to the garish costume effect of his outfit, his sword was the real deal: a straight long blade made of blue steel, hand hammered by some forgotten master in Europe. It still had Bobbi's blood on the tip.

Clint's joined hers, the blade flashing like a hummingbird and cutting his face from the edge of his mouth to his ear. The thin line like a razor's strike poured blood instantly, as head wounds will. Clint sucked in his breath at the sharp pain, then shook his head, spattering his blood in an arc across the floor; he got some on his target, Swordsman's clothes.

If they managed to kill him here, he'd leave evidence behind him. For Bobbi. For the Avengers. They would know where he died. 

Trick Shot moved into the light and slapped Swordsman's arm down. "Not his face." The look he gave the other man was half-way between amused and suspicious but he didn't continue his interrogation. 

Damn. They'd apparently worked out some of their issues with each other over the years. 

The older archer walked up and ran his finger across the wound, making it bleed more, sending little stabs of pain along the whole length. He quirked his head at Clint.

"Hmmm, this is normally the point where you start whining and whimpering like a puppy, little Barton," he said with fond nostalgia.

"It's been over two decades, Buck. I'm not a frightened kid anymore. And over the years, when I thought about you two at all, which wasn't often, I realized something: you weren't badass tough guys. You were--you are--both just a couple of pathetic bullies." He snorted. "I'm an Avenger now. I've faced down and beaten, let's see, gods, monsters, robots, super villains, my own team mates and my wife when she was really pissed off at me. Next to the least of that you two are just...carnie trash."

Trick Shot hauled back and punched him in the gut. Bound as he was he couldn't give with the blow or move at all. But from the look on Trick Shot's face, hitting Clint now felt very differently than hitting him used to feel. In fact, he backed off shaking his hand like it had hurt to punch him.

Swordsman stepped over and _flick flick flick_ cut Clint's shirt off him. 

The body revealed under the gleaming lights was something from a fantasy novel cover: pec muscles with perfect definition, wide and flat rather than bulging; chorded shoulders and triceps, biceps like steel covered in flesh. Abs so precisely laid out they looked drawn on. Clint straightened his head as best he could, trying for haughty disdain, trying to channel Natasha. He thought he managed 'withering contempt' at least.

"My my, you have grown up, little Barton," Duquesne muttered, sounding almost startled. He looked at Chisholm. "That must have felt like punching stone."

"Yeah," the other man muttered. "Doesn't matter. No amount of muscle is going to stop an arrow, or a blade. I want to get started, now." 

Swordsman nodded. "For the best. I think getting him to beg might take longer than we anticipated."

Trick Shot stepped back into the darkness and returned with an arrow in his hand. It had a slim metal head that gleamed in the light, looking sharper than the other man's sword. He stepped up to Clint and pressed the tip of the arrow against the skin of his chest. A drop of fresh blood beaded up, joining the tackier stuff drying on his skin from the facial wound.

Very slowly, his eyes never leaving Clint's, Trick Shot drew the arrow across the Avenger's chest, leaving a line of blood behind it. 

Clint shook his head at him. "Amateur."

*****

Bobbi made Barney go first up the fire escape. They were on the far side of the building from the front entrance and the area seemed unguarded. Since the river they'd come in on wasn't marked on at least one map, it was likely the Circus didn't even know they were vulnerable from that side.

"Why am I going first?" Barney asked. "You're the ninja."

"Ninjas are pussies" she replied. "And you're going first because A) I'm not turning my back on you and B) the first person through a door is more likely to die in an ambush."

On the first level of the metal stairs, Barney looked over and down at her. "I thought we were...okay now?"

She smiled at him, all teeth like a shark. "Just because I'm not actively trying to kill you anymore doesn't mean I trust you, sport."

"Do you trust anyone?"

"I trust...I trusted Clint. Till he lied for you," she responded cheerily but with a cold edge.

Where she couldn't see it, Barney winced. "I swear, if I could take back his stupid and put it all on me, I would."

"Don't call him stupid, Barney," she said softly and he felt a chill run down his spine. "I can say what I like about him but you keep your mouth shut, all right?"

Okay, she still cared about Clint. It was a start. 

They reached the top floor and Barney tried the handle of the maintenance door. It opened with a creak. He jumped back from the gaping dark space, spooked more than he wanted to admit. 

No voices, no alarm, no shots. Bobbi smiled and made an 'after you' gesture so he took a deep breath and stepped inside.

They were at the end of a standard hotel corridor, which ended in close fire doors about half way down the building. Bobbi stepped into the shadow with him, looked down the hall and counted quickly. 

"Ten doors on the right side. Hand on the wall, count them as you come to them. Softly, please." Then she shut the outside door, plunging them into darkness.

Barney trailed his fingers down the wall, feeling her maybe a few paces behind him. She stepped when he stepped. As he brushed over each closed door, he muttered the right number. After ten he held out his hand and found the fire door. She stepped around him and pushed it open. 

The top floor of the hotel had been intended as a kind of 'high-roller' floor so it had many less rooms. In this section there were sky lights in the hall way so they could see again. The corridor took a hard left up ahead and there were only a few doors on each side.

Bobbi held up her hand, listening intently. "Trick Shot, Swordsman, their rooms are on this level, right? Locked but no guards?" She whispered, on her tip toes to get closer to his ear.

"Think so," he whispered back. "Never saw a guard."

"This is unbearably sloppy," she said with a head shake.

"I'm okay with that," Barney grunted. 

She nodded. "Move. Don't turn the corner until I catch up."

Once they were there, she dropped to one knee and inched her head around the corner. People were less likely to track motion not at eye level. Nothing. Just the dead elevators and beyond that two sets of double doors set next to one another in what would be the front side of the building. 

As she stood up she caught Barney looking intently downwards.

At her cleavage.

Bobbi pinched the bridge of her nose. "Oh, good gods, it's genetic. Both of you can't _not_ look, can you? I catch him staring at my chest in the middle of combat sometimes."

"He's got good taste. Please don't hit me any more."

"I've run out of outrage. At the moment. If you touch me, I will end you."

At the paired doors, Bobbi looked at him. "Which one's Trick Shot?"

"No idea," he said.

"Well, then I'll take the right and you take the left. On three."

They both braced themselves.

"One, two three." They each stepped forward and kicked their set of doors in.

Well, she kicked hers in. Barney bounced off his.

Bobbi poked her head in, then turned to him. "Trade you. This is Trick Shot. Grab something you can use." Then she casually kicked open the other doors, leaving Barney red-faced and angry behind her. Now she'd say something cutting and cruel about what a pansy he was...

She disappeared into Swordsman's quarters without looking at him or speaking. Gratefully, Barney rummaged around Trick Shot's weapons, grabbing a bow and some arrows that looked the right length; he tried the draw--a little short (he had long arms like Clint) but he could make do. He stocked up on broadheads...and spent a minute or two trying to get into the lock box next to the bed.

"Quit it," Bobbi called from the doorway. "Save Clint first, robbery later."

She was holding a wooden staff a few feet taller than her. 

"What's that for? You couldn't find a sword in there?" He muttered, grumpily dropping the box and stomping over to her.

She threw him a derisive look. "This is my weapon, Barney. Swords are for people who can't hit things hard enough to do damage."

*****

Clint clenched his teeth so hard his jaw hurt.  
   
Swordsman had gotten out the riding crop--the same damn one they'd hit him with when he was a kid, he remembered the braided pattern on the handle still--and they were trading off laying down welts on his back and arms. They'd already carved up his chest and stomach, thin neat lines that dripped blood and set his skin on fire.

As much as it hurt, it was the emotional damage that was getting to him. Every hit threw him backwards in time, to a terrified teenager, wanting desperately to make these men happy with him. Both so that they'd stop hitting him (it had taken years and some impromptu therapy from Natasha before he realized nothing he could have done would have made it stop) but also so they'd keep teaching him.  
   
The first time he'd picked up that bow, the shitty old one Trick Shot had thrown at his feet, it had felt right in his hands. He suddenly stood straighter, taller, moved without his gawky, awkward teenage gait. He'd hit the target with every shot, not always a bullseye but close. And when one of the other young men the leaders of the Circus seemed to gather tried to take it away from him he'd beaten the older guy to the ground with one hand.  
   
The other wouldn't let go of the bow.  
   
The shooting had gotten Trick Shot's attention; the violence had gotten Swordsman's. They had both claimed him, in equal measures. Trick Shot taught him archery.  
   
Swordsman taught him to kill.  
   
It was grooming, he knew, what happened next. Grooming in all the senses of the word, good, bad, predatory, manipulative...formative. They had made--well, not him, exactly--but they had given him the base that he had used to make himself. They had handed him the blank paper where he'd written the word 'Hawkeye'  in purple crayon at the top. 

These two men had been more fathers to him than the drunk who wrapped himself around a tree.  
   
They'd set him along the path to where he was now, to the man and hero; the fuck up and the leader. The marksman, the killer. All the evil that he sometimes saw in himself.  
   
And yet, the darkness he'd come from, the abuse and pain and fear--those had made him, made _him_. Most people who suffered as he'd suffered turned on themselves like a snake biting their own tail, driving their hatred of the world inward to self-harm or outward to hurting others. Barney had chosen that path.  
   
He'd chosen the rarer, narrower path--and oh, he'd nearly fallen into the abyss on either side over and over. He'd been saved by people who loved him with warrior fierceness, or needed him and his abilities equally fiercely. A gift most people didn't get. He'd gotten so lucky, blundering into SHIELD, into Natasha, into the Avengers...into a marriage with someone who took his pain and transmuted it to grace.  
   
So he'd followed the only path left with to him: to take what he'd endured, use it for his own purpose and swear no one else would go through the same as long as he had breath in his body.  
   
Because that was the man Bobbi saw when she looked at him.  
   
He knew, somehow, that they could take his arm, cripple and mutilate him and she would still look at him the same way. That she would still see and still expect him to be the hero she married.  
   
Whatever anger he'd still felt at Trick Shot and Swordsman just...evaporated.  
   
He owed them both...a case of beer or something. Not his integrity. Not his honor, not his body. Not his loyalty or his service. Not his arm. Not his life.  
   
As that thought finally coalesced in his confused, agonized brain, Clint heard himself start to laugh.  
   
They'd handed him the blank paper; he'd filled it out, bullet points that made up the man he was. He'd had help. From Fury and Hill and Coulson. From the other agents. From Loki, for god's sake. From every villain who'd called him names or mocked him as 'just some guy with a stick and string'. That was all scrawled with whatever was handy.  
   
Everything he'd learned from Natasha and Steve was printed with serious black pen.  
   
Tony, Thor and Bruce, Sam and Rhodey, even Barney before they separated -- that was all in different colors of ink, with rude notes and additions.  
   
But the stuff he'd written in calligraphy, neatly and with care--that was what he had learned about himself from Bobbi.  
   
That he was a man, in the right sense of the word: masculine, not macho. Strong, not brutal. That being hurt as a child didn't condemn or damn him; that no one _deserved_ that kind of abuse. That he had the power to make the world a better place, even if sometimes he had to use the simple tools of violence that he had such a gift for. That he could love anyone, anything, this much and it didn't make him weak--it made him able to lift whole worlds on his shoulders.  
   
That he would rather be dead than lose her.  
   
Well, fine then. First thing to do was get away from these assholes.  
   
Trick Shot, apparently irritated Clint wasn't cowering anymore, slapped him across the face. "Are you just terminally stupid, little Barton? You think this is funny?" He pulled out a large knife, from behind his back. "Shall we just move on to the main event?" He gestured towards Clint's right arm menacingly.  
   
"Hold that thought, Buck," Clint said cheerfully.  
   
At that moment, because sometimes the gods of timing loved him, the doors to the showroom was blown open by the flying body of one of the thugs outside. 

***** 

Barney was feeling a tad...superfluous. 

His sister-in-law had morphed again in front of him . Once she had gotten that quarterstaff (Duquesne fancied himself a weapons master) someone else appeared in her eyes. And not just there. She moved differently, light and smooth and powerful when before she'd either been stomping or running. Despite the fact she was still in that wrinkled, blood spattered pink tank top she suddenly seemed to be wearing armor; she smiled a little the whole time and it wasn't really a friendly expression. 

He'd seen that look on her face before. On television. 

He felt like introducing himself again. _Hi, Mockingbird, I'm Barney. Please don't kill me._

It was a little terrifying to realize after all  he'd seen her do , this was the first time he'd seen the Avenger in her. Everything else had just been...the normal woman inside that head. 

And she'd married his little brother. He was starting to realize he didn't know Clint very well at all. 

She kept him in front of her most of the time as they made their way down the five floors to the main lobby. On each floor she would leave him in the stairwell and go out into the corridors. He'd hear the sounds of her beating men unconscious. When she came back, that smile would be plastered to her face and blood that wasn't hers was covering the old stains. 

On the last floor before the lobby she finally seemed to notice how peeved Barney was getting. She cocked her head at him. "What's got your panties in a bunch?"

"Well, I thought we were teaming up here."

"We're not a team, Barney. I trust my teammates."

"Yeah, well, am I just here for decoration or are you going to let me hit someone at some point?"

"Seriously? You're all whiny because I'm doing my job? Gods, I forgot what it was like to work with amateurs," she said, rolling her eyes.

"What?"

"I have no idea what your hand-to-hand is like. That"--she gestured at the bow--"is a distance weapon. My specialty is close combat. Therefore, I go and punch the guys in the confined spaces and you wait for when you can be useful." 

"Which is?"

She looked at the last door at the bottom of the stairs. She'd taken out nine guys, she'd told him, which he estimated left twelve more on the first floor. This stairwell would let out in the back corridor, and the next set of doors would be the lobby. Most, if not all, the rest of the thugs would be there.

"How about now, jackass?" She spun her weapon over her head and jumped down the last flight of stairs in one bound, flying like a bird.

Despite himself, Barney was impressed and slightly moved by the sheer beauty of Mockingbird in motion. 

At the bottom of the stairs, she body slammed the door open into the corridor and was instantly engaged.

Barney nearly fell down the stairs in his rush to get to her. As he hit the ground floor he saw her drop to one knee and his heart sank.

 _Clint's going to kill me if she gets hurt_ and that's when he realized she'd gone down to clear his sight line. He realized it from the annoyed expression she flipped over her shoulder at him, her staff braced along the length of her arms.

So he shot the two Circus thugs about to pounce on her in the chest and they both went down hard and didn't get back up. She'd laid out two more.

"Slow," she said as she stood back up. "Stay closer next time."

He glowered at her but strung another arrow on the bow, took three more in his hand. "Just move it already," he said.

"That's the smartest thing you've said all day," she laughed and in two light strides reached the main door and was out into the lobby, the staff a sudden whistling blur of violence.

*****

One thing you could say about Swordsman and Trick Shot: they weren't cowards. When the body of their thug blasted into the room it brought a rush of light and sound with it and they both ran towards the commotion immediately. 

Apparently, the doors had been pretty heavy and sound proof because now they could see that their henchmen were in screaming disarray, many of them down on the ground. A blur with blond hair came flying into the dark space of the theatre, spinning and tumbling between the two men as they advanced. Trick Shot turned with a snarl, then looked back at the lobby, clearly uncertain of what to do.

Swordsman cursed and ran back towards Clint. On the way he threw down the riding crop and snatched up his sword. The blond blur--Mockingbird--was so intent on Clint that she didn't seem to see him raise the blade behind her, clearly aiming for her neck.

*****  
Barney turned from kicking down one of the last of the henchmen, saw the sudden danger to the woman who'd personally kicked the shit out of him twice in the last six hours and did not hesitate.

*****

An arrow blossomed in Swordsman's forearm. He screamed and dropped his blade.

Mockingbird spun, swept his feet out from under him and turned back to Clint.

He was smiling, despite the blood and welts covering his bare torso. 

Mockingbird reached out her hand to touch him---and was yanked back and away by Trick Shot. The big man rained blows on her, nearly all of which she deflected or avoided but he drove her back and away from Clint in the process. Then the Swordsman was there too, blood dripping down his arm, and between them they forced her into a defensive posture for a few moments.

And then she laughed, high and clear.

Spinning on one heel she sprinted back into the lobby, where Barney was the last person standing. Both men started after her.

As they reached the door, there came a chilling noise from behind them:

The sound of metal snapping.

They both froze, looking at each other, then turned around.

The framework in the middle of the light was empty. So somewhere in the shadows would be a very angry Hawkeye.

Swordsman and Trick Shot pelted out into the lobby, desperate to get away. 

Leaning against the main desk, Barney had his bow readily to hand, grinning at them.

In front of the main doors, Mockingbird stood in a fighting stance, her staff spinning from one side of her body to the other and back.

And behind them they heard the sound of footsteps, driving them further into the center of the lobby. 

Clint appeared in the door way. The hand cuffs were still in each individual wrist but the chain between them had been snapped. His black bow was in his hand, the other clutching two arrows. He looked from his brother to his wife to the men who had been torturing him.

"Well, guys," he laughed. "Three Bartons. No waiting."

*****

Several hours later, Barney and Clint sat in the red convertible on the edge of an empty stretch of road waiting for Bobbi to come back from her delivery mission.

Clint was shaking his head. "No, I joined SHIELD a few years later. Bummed around doing stupid dangerous stuff before that. Drank too much and got into fights."

"Ah, yeah. Barton stress relief," Barney muttered.

They both heard the sound of an all terrain vehicle growling in the distance. An open topped dune buggy appeared on the horizon, driven by an old man with rich dark skin. In the back, Bobbi was standing up clutching the roll bar. A big dog was belted into the passenger seat.

The vehicle pulled to a stop nearby and Bobbi hopped down, shaking the driver's hand and patting the dog before starting resolutely towards the Barton brothers.

As she trotted up, she squinted at them from under the brim of her baseball cap. 

She and Clint were both in fresh clothes, though Clint's were already dotted with blood from some of the many welts and cuts the Circus masters had inflicted on him. They'd only had time for cursory first aid before leaving the hotel.

They'd loaded up the convertible with their personal things and Bobbi had taken the keys to the dune buggy. The Circus had laid in supplies over the years so she had packed food, medical kits, spare clothing and lots of ammunition into the buggy. Then she and Clint had a quick quiet conversation and she'd taken off in the vehicle through the desert. 

Clint picked up one of the burner cell phones Swordsman used and dialed a number from memory. 

"Hi. Track this cell, at the end you'll find an abandoned hotel that's been used as the headquarters for the Circus of Crime for, oh, a decade or so. You'll also find the wanted criminals Jacques Duquesne and Buck Chisholm."

Then he'd tucked the cell into Swordsman's front pocket and gestured at Barney to go to the car. They left the Circus of Crime handcuffed to each other like a big daisy chain of scumbags and secured to the sturdy marble base of one of the decorative columns in the lobby.

Bobbi came up to Clint's side of the car--the convertible top was up to shade them all from the sun--and he got out of the vehicle to let her get into the back seat. As she climbed in, Barney heard himself mutter: "How's the dog?"

"Good, actually," she responded. "Stronger already. I am so _done_ arguing with the FDA about that stuff. We're going to get it approved by the end of the year or else."

"Or else what?" Asked Clint.

"Or else I sic Pepper on them," she responded then looked behind her swiftly.

She caught both brothers openly staring at her ass.  
"Okay, seriously, am I like Barton catnip or something?" She said in a sour voice as she settled into the back seat, flipping open Clint's Starktab and paging through something. She'd wiped her own and used her driving time back to Duncan's little home to fill it full of books. 

_I promised him a library_ she'd told Clint. _And if something ever goes wrong again, at least he'll be able to use it to get help._

"So, where you going to drop me?" Barney asked as they got back onto one of the main highways, heading towards Las Vegas.

"In a room at the Tech like a couple floors below ours," Clint responded.

"Huh?"

"Stark's a silent partner in the Tech Hotel and there's a standing suite for any Avenger that wants it. They'll comp you a room too." Clint looked at his brother for a second. "You don't have to stay, if you don't want to Barn. I'll leave you somewhere else if you like. But after going to all this trouble to get me out here, the least you could do is...stick around a minute."

"Why would you want me to? I nearly got both of you killed."

"Oh, I'm totally okay with kicking you out of the car right now. Wouldn't even need to slow down," Bobbi offered in a distracted tone, not looking up from the tablet. 

Clint winced but didn't say anything, staring at the road.

Barney blinked slowly then turned and settled into his seat in a comfortable slouch. "I'll check out the room at least. I could do with a shower."

At the hotel, at the south end of the Strip, they pulled up to a small side entrance and a valet took their keys while a bellhop whisked their luggage away. Clint kept their weapons case close by, of course.

Barney was the first through the revolving door into the private lobby and so was obscured for a moment by flashing darkened glass.

When Clint popped into the lobby, the first thing he saw was a very large number of guns being pointed at his brother. Bobbi's hand clamped down on his wrist before he could shake his bow loose of the case.

"Charles Bernard Barton, you are under arrest for Grand Larceny, Extortion, Assault, Manslaughter and oh, a whole bunch of other things," a tall black man in a very nice suit was saying. He had a badge visible in his hand: FBI.

Barney had his hands up, his face a study in shock. He looked at his sister-in-law who was staring at him steadily. "Point to you, sis." He said, almost laughing. Then he'd been hand cuffed and was being lead out of the room.

Clint stared after him, then turned to Bobbi. "What the hell?" He hissed.  
She shook her head. "I'll explain upstairs." The lead agent walked over to them and extended his hand.

"Hawkeye, Mockingbird, thank you for the tip. Mr Barton's one of our top wanted fugitives." He paused and look at each one of them as they shook his hand. "You wouldn't happen to know about a phone call that was made to the Nevada State Police direct dispatch line a few hours ago? Cause that call lead to the capture of a couple more bad guys--this time off the 'Ten Most Wanted' list. They were known associates of Mr Barton."

"I have no idea about that," Mockingbird said lightly and insincerely. "Did you need anything else from us Agent Verra?"

"Not at the moment. I think we covered everything on the phone. But please remain available for any statements."

"Of course."

Clint made it till the elevator door closed before rounding on Bobbi. "Why did you have my brother arrested?" He snapped.

Bobbi shook her head. "I did a little digging once we had our stuff back. There are four separate contracts out on his life, Clint. Federal protective custody is the only place we can keep him safe right now. They're going to lodge him anonymously and they've promised me no one will get to him. That was the deal, in exchange for him rolling on the Circus."  
   
Clint's mouth shut and he subsided into a brooding silence until they were in their suite on one of the top floors of the very swanky hotel. Their luggage was already waiting for them. Once the door was shut, Bobbi turned to him. They stood awkwardly staring in the tiled entrance area.

It was very strange for either of them to be physically uncomfortable around each other. Normally they'd already be making out.

"From a few things he said, Clint, I think he was at the end of his rope and approached his oldest associates--the Circus--for help. I'd guess Duquesne lied to him and said he could get the contracts pulled as long as he fetched you out here." She walked a few paces away, towards the plush carpet and deep soft furniture of the living room area. "Barney probably knew Swordsman was lying but it was just plausible enough--both he and Chisholm have been high-powered criminals for decades now--that he chose to believe. Right up until they were going to shoot him on the bridge."

She'd reached the sofa and was starting to turn around when she heard a thump behind her.

Clint was down on his knees, his powerful hands clenched at his sides.

"I don't care about Barney right now, Bobbi. I care about you," he said. His voice broke and cracked, dropping to a terrified whisper. "Please don't leave me. That was all I could think about, back there, while they were torturing me. They could take my arm if it meant you might not leave me."

He gasped like a man taking a mortal wound. "Please. Don't. Leave. Me."

She sat down as her knees went out from under her and stared at him in silence for a long time.

Clint's face twisted, his breath sawing in his chest. He started to gulp, his hands coming up to reach out for her as though he expected her to come over and slap them away. Every bone in his body had turned to flaming acid.

"Hang on," she muttered, then pointed to her own head. "Epiphany here."  
   
He inched towards her, still on his knees, then stopped at the edge of the carpeted area. He stared at her, his emotions naked in his eyes: fear, pain, dread, agony. 

Bobbi shook herself like a wet dog and gestured at him to come closer. He did not rise, all but crawling on his hands until he was at the out stretched length of her arm. 

"You know when I told you if you broke my three rules I'd divorce you?"

Clint's whole body twisted, as though his heart was literally trying to rip itself out of his chest.

"Well, here's the thing: you just did break one of them...and I'm still here. I mean, I would have rescued your sorry ass no matter what but I could have just...not come back to the car, right? But I did. And I didn't even think about not doing it. Somewhere, out there in the desert, dealing with your pain in the ass brother, something shifted in here. In that place in my head I'd been keeping my rules and my limits, all the little things I used to protect myself. I think it was when I saw what you could have been, in Barney, as opposed to what you are. The contrast was like sliding an ice cube across a burn. Like taking a bullet to the brain."

She slide off the sofa to match his stance, reaching out to touch his face. He trembled as her fingers grazed his cheek. "I can't protect myself from you. Not anymore; maybe not ever. So, you should know you have this enormous, incendiary power over me, my Hawk. My deal breakers are broken. I can't leave you. You could lie to me, you could cheat on me. You could strike me with rage in your eyes. And I would never be able to stop loving you."

Leaning in, Bobbi kissed him lightly on the mouth, just a brush of her lips, dry and chapped against his.

"But if you ever do any of that stuff I'll either beat you to a pulp or I will tell on you. Imagine Steve hearing that you'd hit me, or Nat that you're slept around."

Clint flinched harder than he had when Trick Shot was whipping him.

"Get up already, will you? I don't like seeing you on your knees unless I'm not wearing underwear," she finished as lightly as she could given they were both crying now. She brushed a hand across her face. "We need food, and showers, and medical attention: some of those cuts on your chest are still bleeding. And then sleep. Then after that we can plan what you're going to tell the rest of team about your no longer deceased sibling."

Clint stood up, pulling her to her feet with him.

They did both need to eat and clean up, badly, but it was a very long time before he could bring himself to let her out of his embrace.

*****

_Several Weeks Later: An Undisclosed Federal Prison_

Barney Barton, as he was not known at the moment, sat in the private exercise courtyard across a battered picnic table from his brother. 

Clint looked good, his welts and cuts healed, his eyes clear. 

"Anyway, we've pretty much bought out two of the contracts, the New York mob and the Cali Dogs of Hell chapter: they've both been hit hard by Daredevil and the Punisher lately and they need the money. Bobbi and Nat are working on the other two but it's going to take a while. How did you piss off _all_ the Triads anyway?" Clint was asking him.

"Natural talent. You still in the dog house at home?" Barney asked him.

"I'm in six separate dog houses, like fucking nesting dolls. The only person who isn't still pissed at me is Thor cause he's just glad someone else on the team also has an asshole brother." Clint shook his head. "I swear, Steve's keeping up his hurt face just so he can lecture me without me arguing about it."

"Bobbi's not going to leave you, is she? I...I'd be really unhappy to hear that," Barney said slowly.

"She'd already be gone. Not one for fucking around, my wife."

"Yeah. So, a few years back I had this guy, high on PCP, with a machete, threatening to go full Scarface on me. Your wife, soaking wet, unarmed, in a tank top? _Way scarier_."

"You got a point here Barn?"

"You married up, little brother."

"Barn, she has three degrees. I didn't marry up. I married into orbit."

Barney studied him, aghast. "Three degrees? Do you ever talk to each other or do you just fuck twenty four hours a day?"

"Yes."

"Smart ass."

The Barton brothers grinned at each other for a moment.

"Clint, don't ever risk her for anything like that again, okay? Not me, not anything. You're never going to find someone who loves you like that, with that fine an ass, ever again," Barney said in a serious voice.

"I'll tell her you said that," Clint chirped back at him.

"Why'd you go to the trouble to get the contracts pulled if you're just going to have her kill me instead?"

Clint stood up, getting ready to leave. Bobbi was waiting in the car outside. They were going to a cabin that Stark owned so he could begin to repay his debt to her for the whole debacle. He swung his jacket over one shoulder.

"Bartons of a feather, Barn. Gotta stick together."  
   
   
 

**Author's Note:**

> (1) As described in "36 Hours To Kill" on this fine site
> 
> (2) Referencing "The Siege of Manhattan" also round here some place


End file.
